How classroom learning repairs shattered lives

Talking points

"I was really despressed. I suffered from fatigue. Only I knew what was wrong with me. People couldn't see it but I could feel it."

Tenth anniversary of "Clemente" courses in Canberra

Assunta Arioli's life fell apart after she suffered a series of car accidents in a short space of time.

It wasn't so much the physical damage she suffered from but the mental disintegration which the crashes triggered.

Assunta Arioli. Taking the steps back up at the Australian Catholic University.Credit:Dion Georgopoulos

"I was really depressed," she says. "I suffered from fatigue. Only I knew what was wrong with me. People couldn't see it but I could feel it."

She said that two of the crashes were minor but the last two had big impacts, one of them when a trailer on a truck swung into her path as she was driving on the correct side of a wet road, travelling in the opposite direction.

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Even though she didn't need major hospital treatment, she started to feel isolated and her mental health suffered. She had been a public servant with the ACT government for 14 years but found herself unable to hold down her job.

"Being a career girl, and then no longer being at that level, the depression built up,” she said.

Her personal confidence is now coming back through a remarkable course at the Australian Catholic University in Canberra. It's called Clemente and is run by the ACU in conjunction with the St Vincent de Paul Society.

It's designed for people who may not have had that much education. Some may have had drug or mental problems. They are not at the top of society.

But the aim is to give them classroom experience in order to put them on an upward path. A course in Italian, for example, may take the form of learning to cook Italian food and, in the process, use the Italian terms and gradually more of the language.

Professor Patrick McArdle, the dean of the Canberra campus of the ACU, said, "It's been phenomenal." He thinks one of the benefits is that the students from outside the university take part in the course on campus and therefore rub shoulders with the more conventional, often younger, students.

Some students on the course have gone on to degree level work and even beyond towards PhDs. Others just put themselves back together.

Professor McArdle said the main criterion for selecting students was their ability and will to complete the course, in some cases, "their wherewithal to get out of bed".

According to Barnie van Wyk, the chief executive of the St Vincent de Paul Society in Canberra, the course was "designed to support learning by building self-esteem, communication skills and social skills."

Since it started in Canberra, more than 500 students have taken part.

Assunta Arioli attends once a week, on a Friday, and that has given her a purpose. She has overcome a feeling of foreboding about formal learning.

"I was scared. I think it scares people thinking ‘oh it’s uni’ and I think that’s why, before, I was really scared to come and do it."

But she has overcome her fear. “The people here are just wonderful; they couldn’t do enough for you to keep you coming, and the people in the class themselves are so nice,” she said.